Despite the poor weather this morning, an enthusiastic audience of editors, students and film makers were present at screen 4 of the LightHouse Cinema, Smithsfield in Dublin. The effort was made to have a rare opportunity to listen to film editor Úna Ní Dhongháile in conversation with fellow editor and director Declan McGrath (Reign of Fire, Killinaskully, Fairytale of Kathmandu, Lomax in Éirinn).
Úna shared her knowledge and insights across her impressive editing career in both film and television. An IFTA and BAFTA-winning Editor, Una is currently working with director Kenneth Branagh, and has a long list of credits including All is True, The Crown, Stan and Ollie, BBC mini-series Les Misérables, and Irish feature film Rosie, along with Three Girls, The Missing, Doctor Who and Ripper Street.
Declan McGrath, an accomplished editor himself, quizzed Úna on a number of the high profile projects and how the path to editing was formed for her. We were told of how she studied Film & Media in D.I.T Aungier Street, were she turned her attention to editing, studying the craft for three years at the National Film and Television School, IADT.
Specially selected clips of her work were screened and talked about in detail, including a opening well paced scene to Les Misérables, a high tension scenes from Three Girls, a comedic timing piece of the Laurel and Hardy biopic Stan & Ollie starring Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly and ending on a sample of the visual effects composition to The Crown. Declan guided Úna to give the editing audience an insight to the complex editing world in which she has mastered over the past 20 years ending with a quick Q&A.
The new series of The Crown will be released in the coming months.
Simon McGuire 